Over the weekend, Proletariatron, Mexicus Prime and I ventured out to our local cinema to take in the stylized film that is Sucker Punch. Prior to our viewing we all avoided any and all official reviews about the film, though, we heard a few rumblings here and there that this movie just wasn’t that good. After my viewing of the film I visited a few sites to read some reviews, and they were less than favorable. The thing is, I don’t disagree with any of the negative things said about the film – the plot was pretty convoluted and weak, the film does come across as just an excuse to showcase sexy women running around kicking ass – but, I liked it.

I’m here to give you my “review” of Sucker Punch, without apologizing for any of the many mistakes this film makes. I just feel like that perhaps this isn’t a movie that should just be disregarded so quickly.

There’s something to be said about the frame of mind you go in with for a movie like this. I’m not sure what other people’s expectations were but I was fully prepared for a weak plot that barely serves the purposed of moving the audience from one mindless action scene to another. I’m not a professional movie critic, so perhaps it’s easier for me to just turn my brain off, lower my expectations, and enjoy a loud movie with lots of shooting, stabbing, and punching. Does this say a lot about the film to begin with? Probably not. I decided after viewing the first trailer for Sucker Punch that I was going to go into this film with zero expectations except I am going to see attractive women whooping the hell out of various “bad guys”, and with this very basic expectation, I was pleased.

The film opens with the “basis” of the story: Babydoll (Emily Browning) accidently kills her younger sister trying to protect her from their evil stepfather, who then uses this as fodder to commit her to an insane asylum – this all set to a haunting rendition of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), performed by Emily Browning. Once in the asylum we find out Babydoll is going to be labotimized in 5 days. Next thing I know, the asylum is now some sort of burlesque house, all the inmates are dancers/whores, and everyone is sexed up to the third degree. I got that this was all being played out in her mind for some reason, but I didn’t really get the point. It’s at this time, about ten minutes into the film, I checked out of the plot. I literally looked over to Mexicus Prime, mouthed “I don’t know what the hell is going on.”, grabbed a handful of popcorn, swirled my Icee around, and decided, “Okay, I’m going to enjoy this for what it is I suppose.” Frankly, it’s a good thing I checked out so early, because all of those kick-ass action scenes we’ve all seen in the trailers, those all happen in the version of Babydoll in Babydoll’s head’s head as she’s dancing. Yeah . . . it makes that little of sense.

For the rest of the movie I was sitting back in my chair enjoying this film for pretty much the only reason I decided to see it. There was ridiculous over-the-top action, kick-ass heroines, obligatory posing after performing some sort of awesome feat, shooting, stabbing, jumping, flipping, skirts flailing, explosions, and loud music to accompany it all. I can honestly say I had a great time watching each and every action sequence presented and for me, that’s all I was really hoping for out of Sucker Punch. The fighting choreography and physics are so over the top at times it reminded me of watching anime, but I was drinking up every last drop of it, and I would think that even those most disgusted with this movie would admit that there were some pretty cool, stylized ass-kickery about these scenes. It are these sequences alone that redeemed this movie in any way for me, and the only reason I suggest to not be so quick to just pass on this film, even if you wait until it hits Netflix. There’s something to be said about just enjoying gratuitis action for the sake of gratuitis action. These action scenes played out on screen as Babydoll is “dancing” come across a bunch of different ideas Zack Snyder had for awesome action sequences – but then just decided to try to cram them all in one movie. At one point or another the girls do battle with WWI nazi zombies, a dragon, knights, robots and samurais. All exciting, sexy-to-look at, stylized, well done scenes – but I really feel like Snyder could have come up with a much better script to tie these things together, or at the very least worked with this idea he had about being in the mind of a young girl in an insane asylum and ironed it out (a lot).

For those of you who have read reviews about this film, unfortunately most of what critics are saying about Sucker Punch is true. The plot is a weak, convoluted excuse to put these action sequences on the big screen and the characters are all one-dimensional. Perhaps I am the exact demographic this movie is aimed down the barrel at: male, mid-twenties, appreciates ridiculous action; so throw a bunch of scantily clad, ridiculously attractive women on screen with swords, guns and acrobatic prowess of course I’m going to enjoy it in some regard – but I recognize that I am most likely in the minority in considering this gives Sucker Punch any sort of redeeming quality.

I can’t “recommend” this movie to anyone. There are far too many mistakes from a bad script, almost non-existant character development, and poor editing during anything thats not an action sequence. That all being said, if you ever find yourself one afternoon craving a movie with loud, stylized, and over-the-top action with sexy actresses, Sucker Punch may feed that craving, and you may enjoy it a little more than everyone else seems to be.

Here are some of the comments made about Sucker Punch by Arse-bot, Mexicus Prime, and Proletariatron during and immediately following the ending of the film:

• “That movie was the live-action version of what kids in elementary school draw in their notebooks during class.” -Proletariatron
• “That movie was loud as shit!” -Mexicus Prime
• “Well, at least it was a sexy looking movie.” -Arse-bot
• “I don’t know what the hell is going on.” -Arse-bot to Mexicus Prime within 10 minutes
• “I just . . . I just don’t know . . . what the . . .” -Mexicus Prime
• “I felt like I just got sucker punched.” (no one laughed) -Mexicus Prime
• “Emily Browning is so hot in this movie it actually pissed me off.” -Arse-bot
• “It’s like someone bet Zack Snyder, ‘Hey man, I bet you can’t fit scifi, steam punk, knights, samurais, dragons, castles, guns, swords, explosions, sexed-up women, over-the-top action, slow motion, robots, bombs, whores, death, violence, lobotomies, nazis, zombies, jet packs, and attempted rape all into one movie!’ To which he replied, ‘Watch me.'” -Arse-bot

You can check out Bizzarobot’s review of Sucker Punch as well!